Teaching Central/Main Idea and Relevant Details Through Interactive Read-Alouds

Yes! Teaching central/main idea and relevant details can be FUN!

Elementary teachers looking for free and engaging lesson ideas to support teaching central/main idea and relevant details will find this post helpful. It also includes non-fiction picture book recommendations that align with the skill and easy ways to make read-alouds meaningful and interactive. Let’s get to it!

It doesn’t have to be like pulling teeth or grading essays or reteaching classroom procedures for the millionth time. The reason this particular skill gets a bad rap is because it’s a difficult concept for students to grasp. But it’s only difficult because the majority of non-fiction that students are exposed to is within a textbook, or a leveled reader, or a personality-less reading passage.

I’m here to tell you that there are SO. MANY. EXCEPTIONAL non-fiction trade books that will make teaching central/main idea a pleasant breath of fresh air.

Sample Lesson Dialogue

Let’s start off with a chant to distinguish fiction from non-fiction:

(Teacher) What does fiction do? (Class) Fiction tells a story.

(Teacher) Non-fiction gives us: (Class) Facts and information.

Go back and forth chanting, until they get it. It may take a while.

My lesson introduction goes something like this:

Give me a thumbs up if you prefer to read FICTION books that are made up by the author with characters, a setting, a problem, and lots of plot events that typically lead to a resolution?

Give me a thumbs up if you prefer to read NON-FICTION books that give you facts and information about a topic?

What are your favorite non-fiction topics to read about?

What else can we find in non-fiction that isn’t usually found in fiction? (Students may say photographs with captions, text headings, charts and graphs, numbers, dates, real people’s names, maps, diagrams, sidebars, lists, etc.)

Today we will be reading, talking, and analyzing some really fascinating non-fiction books to look for the central or BIG idea of the text. Many authors love to organize their facts and information around one BIG, CENTRAL, MAIN idea and then supply lots of little details to support it. Our job today is to soak up all of the interesting details and then try to figure out what BIG idea they are supporting.

Are you ready? Yes! Let’s dive into non-fiction!

Lesson Ideas + Recommended Mentor Texts

*Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases made through the links provide me with a small commission at no cost to you!

Who Has These Feet? By: Laura Hulbert

At first glance this looks too simple or babyish for a read-aloud but don’t judge a book by its, er, title and cover. It’s PERFECT for an introductory lesson on central/main idea because the text is written in a way that is highly engaging and easy to remember later on. Before reading, remind students to remember the details that are stated about each particular animal’s feet because they are going to help determine the central idea.

Here’s my central idea hook that they will remember forever and ever:

Have an umbrella ready to pull out of a secret drawer or cabinet. Tell students this is your very special Central Idea Umbrella and you will open it in the classroom because superstitions do not affect teachers.

For the umbrella to open, they must construct a central idea for Who Has These Feet?

The central idea is what the entire book is about. It’s the biggest, most important idea the author writes about. To find the central idea, students should ask themselves, “What is the entire book mostly about?” Well, animal feet, duh! But it’s also important to note that highly skilled Central Idea Constructors know that a central idea should be written as a complete sentence.

With some guidance and leading questions, students should construct the following central idea: Animals have specially designed feet to adapt to their habitat. Hooray, the Central Idea Umbrella can open! But it needs support to hold it up!

Here’s the fun part. Call on student volunteers to provide relevant details from the text that support the central idea. Ask the class, “Does this detail support our central idea?” If the answer is yes, then call the student down to support (or hold the handle of) the Central Idea Umbrella!  Five or six hands supporting the umbrella is generally sufficient to get the point across.  

Relevant Detail Examples:

• The polar bear has fur on the bottom of its feet to keep it from slipping on the ice.
• The tree frog has sticky pads on its feet so it can stick to leaves.
• The desert iguana has spiked scales on its feet to keep it from sinking into the sand.
• The kangaroo has extra long feet to help it jump long distances as it looks for food.

You can refer back to the Central Idea Umbrella as needed throughout the lesson by asking, “Does this detail support (or belong under) the central idea or does it belong somewhere else?”

Animals Nobody Loves By: Seymour Simon

Anything by Seymour Simon is a non-fiction winner, but Animals Nobody Loves is a fan favorite due to its vivid, squeal-inducing photographs and captivating facts about the world’s ugliest, strangest, deadliest, and downright undesirable animals.

Before you start reading, affix a sheet of paper over the cover so students can’t see the title or cover image. Tell them that you are going to read a book full of fascinating details and that their job is to determine the central idea. Be ready for students to gasp and shriek as you open the book and show the photographs.

Note: Unlike fiction, you don’t have to read every page! I skip around to the pages I think my students will find the most interesting and gloss over the rest. You WANT them to come back for more on their own, so do not feel the need to make their eyes glaze over by reading every single page of facts.

After sharing a handful of the most interesting pages, ask students to construct a central idea in a complete sentence. Once again, ask for volunteers to supply relevant details to support the Central Idea Umbrella.

Here’s the central idea we constructed: There are many animals that are scary, deadly, or gross, but they look and act a certain way to survive. They may come up with something a bit different, and that’s okay! Then make a big fuss about revealing the cover and title of the story.

Other Not-to-Be-Missed Non-Fiction Selections Featuring Animals:

A super simple way to infuse the central idea into a standard read aloud is to ask students to supply a better title for the book after you have read it.

Remind them that their title must be a complete sentence and encompass the central idea of the text.

Pink is for Blobfish by: Jess Keating

If you aren’t familiar with Jess Keating’s The World of Weird Animals series, then I highly suggest adding a few to your classroom library! The photographs are what draw you in (how can you not be captivated by a blobfish?!), but the clever almanac-style structure is witty and fun and what keeps readers hanging on every sentence.

As an aside, did you know naked mole rats are skilled architects?? Their elaborate living quarters include a toilet, a nursery, and even a pantry for storing food! 🤓

Hidden Animal Colors by: Jane Park

This unassuming rhyming book is a non-fiction treasure that holds a captive audience no matter the age. Eight different creatures—from the familiar mallard duck to the exotic tinamou—are organized in a manner that involves dramatic page-turning suspense and gasps of delight once the hidden animal color is revealed. Just wait until you get to the mandrill’s colorful bottom– the ultimate crowd pleasing page! The back matter is especially helpful with a quiz, glossary, and list of further reading. 

An Egg is Quiet by: Dianna Aston

Think a book about eggs would be boring? Oh, think again my friend. Dianna Aston and Silvia Long make a dynamo author-illustrator team of non-fiction masterpieces that would be equally at home in a classroom library or in an art gallery. There are six books in their nature series, all beautifully written and exquisitely illustrated, but An Egg is Quiet is my favorite. Challenge your students to look for sub-central ideas (I.e., An egg is colorful. An egg is clever. An egg comes in many textures) and see how many relevant details they can remember from the text to support them.

Honeybee: The Busy Life of Apis Mellifera

And the award for The Most Underrated Worker of the Natural World goes to… the honeybee! Candace Fleming’s Honeybee gives us an up-close and personal look at the life cycle of Apis Mellifera, or Apis for short. The narrative writing style and breathtaking illustrations perfectly capture the tireless devotion of the honeybee to her colony, as she moves through each hard-working stage of her short life.  At thirty-five days old, she has flown five HUNDRED miles back and forth between nest and blossoms. She has visited thirty THOUSAND flowers and collected enough nectar to make one-twelfth of a teaspoon of honey. The backmatter is splendid, with a full two-page diagram of the worker bee’s body, an explanation of why and how we should help out honeybees, and a list of facts that will make even the most bee-averse human prickle with interest.

*Note: If you love Honeybee, be sure to check out Giant Squid, also by Candace Fleming.

Beware of the Crocodile by: Martin Jenkins

Ooh, this one is fun to read aloud! At first glance, it looks like Beware of the Crocodile is going to regale young readers with a cute little story about a menace crocodile, but oh, how wrong we are in this assumption, as this is non-fiction through and through. There are two main central ideas that stand out and the text makes it quite simple for primary students to supply relevant details.

• Crocodiles are dangerous.
• Crocodiles make excellent mothers. (Crocodile fathers, not so much. Lol.)

A few more superb titles for teaching central idea and relevant details:

Although veering off the topic of animals, these titles stand alone as excellent central idea read-aloud material.

I love starting off the school year with Margaret Wise Brown’s The Important Book, but it would also make a stellar introduction to a central idea lesson! Have students create their own Important Book page to combine into a class book. Or pass out thick white paper and turn it into an art project with oil pastels and watercolors. Our Important Book pages looked so beautiful on a bulletin board that I kept them up the entire year!

*I included possible central/main ideas, but you and your students can certainly come up with their own!

 Can you think of any more titles to add to my list of central idea read-alouds?? The more the better!

yours in reading,
rawley